---If you're a homeowner and have not paid off your mortgage please read the following if you are now suffering financial hardships, or believe that you may suffer financial hardships in the future, due too lost income because of the coronavirus outbreak.
Depending on your situation, you should be eligible to have your mortgage payments reduced or suspended for up to 12 months.
Federal regulators (FHFA), through the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are ordering mortgage lenders to offer homeowners flexibility when it comes to mortgage payments. The move covers about half of all home loans in the U.S. — those guaranteed by Fannie and Freddie. But regulators expect that the entire mortgage industry will quickly adopt a similar policy.
Under the plan, people who have suffered a loss of income can qualify to make reduced payments or be granted a complete pause in payments of their mortgage loan. That forbearance of payment is for up to 12 months, depending on your particular situation (they could conceivably extend maximum time-length in the future).
Homeowners can't just stop paying their mortgage. You'll need to contact your particular mortgage lender (the bank or institution you send the check to every month). You're lender is now required by law to work with you; to work out a restructured payment plan. in the short term all you'll have to do is verbally testify to your lender that you are under financial distress due to coronavirus. However, further down the road, you will have to prove that hardship through documentation of income loss.
This is not a forgiveness of debt or free money. Homeowners will work out a repayment plan once they recover financially. In most cases this will involve just extending the term of the loan, but could be done in a number of ways (like increasing your current monthly payment over the life of the loan).
In addition, Fannie and Freddie are directing lenders not to report people to the credit bureaus for late or missed payments if they are in one of these forbearance plans.
*These moves don't do anything to help renters, but the federal government is working on a stimulus package that will hopefully offer financial assistance to renters as well (so stay attentive to the bills the senate/house pass and president signs in the near future). Many municipalities are already halting evictions for people who can't pay rent.